I’m trying to squeeze out the last couple of chapters on A Traveler to Nascenza. Taking quick breaks to do things other than writing, I tell myself, gives me some time to knit loose ends together in my head before I commit them to paper. Yesterday, during a troublesome spot, I spent a little more time in the kitchen than I did on my laptop.
First I chopped tomatoes and basil from the garden and mixed them with a touch of oil and garlic so I could chill them and serve it as a bruschetta for dinner. Then I made some yogurt brownies. And finally, because I had the ingredients and the nerve, I made dog treats, intending them for Clark and Jeffrey’s dog, Stella. Because no matter how mean Mike and Brian are about the shirts I wear, their dog is always sweet to me.
The dog biscuits involved mixing peanut butter in hot chicken stock to break it down, then adding egg and molasses and cooking oil, then stirring in cornmeal and whole wheat flour. When it was somewhat cohesive, I rolled the dough out into a log that I cut into slices, and then halved each slice before putting the bite-sized nuggets on a cookie sheet for baking. The scent of peanut butter and chicken stock baking was, oddly enough, not reminiscent of a chicken satay or anything savory. Mostly it was pretty stanky, so I was grateful when the little morsels had been reduced to little cookies and had cooled, so I could seal them away in a plastic bag to take down to Clark and Jeffrey later.
When the Mont came home from school, I was back to work. “Hi honey,” I called out from the sofa in the den, where I was writing.
“What have you been doing?” he asked, putting down his briefcase. “Mmm. Brownies,” he said, after seeing the pan sitting on the oven. “What are these chocolate things?”
“Chocolate things?” I asked, a little muzzy-headed from making fiction.
“These.” He walked toward the den with the bag in his hand.
“They’re not chocolate,” I said.
“What are they?”
“Well, smell them,” I suggested. He opened up the bag and inhaled. Not finding anything out of the ordinary, he stuck his hand inside and, before I could stop him, popped one in his mouth and began chewing. My jaw dropped open. Barely able to contain my laughter, I said, “They’re dog biscuits.”
Oh, the look on his face. There are too few moments in life as fully satisfactory as the few seconds immediately following my announcement. I haven’t laughed so much since the Mont was mistaken for my father.
Later in the evening, when I burst into a spontaneous fit of laughter remembering it, he glared at me from the sofa. “It wasn’t as if you put dog food in them,” he complained.
He didn’t have a retort when I pointed out the obvious, however. “But you didn’t know that!”
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
That Shirt
The best part of a recession—and I know some of you are feeling me out there—is the sales. Desperate retailers plus desperately trying to move stock equals some really good buys, when one stumbles upon them. It was last week, when the Mont and I were window shopping our way around one of those department stores that mysteriously seems to hang on for month after month despite never having any actual customers, that we happened upon a cluster of sales racks of designer clothing that had been steeply discounted. I mean, the original prices had already been cut in half, and the store was inviting us to remove an additional eighty-five percent or more.
Unfortunately, it was also the kind of store that stocked very little in my spindly size. From the small section of the rack I plucked a shirt that normally for which I’d never fork over legal tender. In my head I rapidly did some calculations, then double-checked them on my phone’s calculator. “What do you think of this one?” I asked the Mont. “It’s a ninety-dollar Perry Ellis shirt. Now it’s six dollars.” Even my depressed wallet could afford six dollars.
He looked up, then startled back. “AIEE!” he shrieked.
I blinked a few times. Sure, the shirt was a little . . . well . . . loud, with its busy pattern of cornflower blue poppies on a bright white cotton background. Yes, it was the kind of obnoxious shirt one ordinarily sees on party boys out for a night of shots and tapas. But I liked it. “I’m buying it,” I told him, ignoring his eye-rolling.
Once home, I tried the shirt on with some jeans, and rather liked the effect. It suited me. I liked the inner lining, and the way it was made. I walked downstairs and stood in front of the Mont in the den. “How’s it look?” I asked.
He glanced up from his computer and flinched away. “Good god!” he yelled. “Don’t do that to me!”
“Oh, come on,” I chided. “It’s not that bad. Is it?”
He smiled in a conciliatory manner and said, with the utmost of sincerity, “No, it will be fine. Once you have a sweater over it.”
Butt-wipe.
Saturday night, feeling feisty, I announced, “I am wearing the shirt.”
“You’re not really,” said the Mont.
“Yes. I am.”
“Airplanes will mistake you for a landing strip.”
“I’m wearing it!”
I must have sounded determined, because he shrugged in that sort of it’s your funeral way and let me go change. I put on the shirt and looked at myself in the mirror. It fit well. It didn’t billow around the waist, the way so many slim-fitting shirts tend to. I still liked it. It was in that kind of proud and feisty mood that a couple of minutes later we pulled up in front of Clark and Jeffrey’s house down the street, to pick them up before we went to the bar. “Good evening, Clark and Jeffrey, people to whom I am speaking this evening,” I said.
There was a moment of silence as they both settled in. Then Clark said, “Oh, are you not talking to the Mont because he said something about you wearing his mother’s blouse?”
The whole, long evening was like that. My so-called friends had the bar’s owner come over and ask me if I’d like him to find a tablecloth to match my shirt, and enlisted the karaoke mistress to call me to the microphone using my drag-name-if-I-had-a-drag-name. (If you must know, it’s Pansy Pots. Because once we were driving by a garden center that had a sign advertising Pansy Pots 3 for $5, and I said, “You know, that would make a great drag name.”) By the end of the night, even my friend ‘Drew’s partner, Stee, was in on the joke. When the Mont went up to the mic and ended up soloing “Something Stupid,” on which we normally duet, I complained loud and long that ordinarily he asked me to sing with him.
“Maybe it’s the shirt,” said Stee, sounding apologetic.
I don’t care. I like the shirt. It was six dollars. Maybe there was a reason it was discounted so steeply. I’m wearing it, dammit. I'M WEARING IT ALL THE TIME.
Unfortunately, it was also the kind of store that stocked very little in my spindly size. From the small section of the rack I plucked a shirt that normally for which I’d never fork over legal tender. In my head I rapidly did some calculations, then double-checked them on my phone’s calculator. “What do you think of this one?” I asked the Mont. “It’s a ninety-dollar Perry Ellis shirt. Now it’s six dollars.” Even my depressed wallet could afford six dollars.
He looked up, then startled back. “AIEE!” he shrieked.
I blinked a few times. Sure, the shirt was a little . . . well . . . loud, with its busy pattern of cornflower blue poppies on a bright white cotton background. Yes, it was the kind of obnoxious shirt one ordinarily sees on party boys out for a night of shots and tapas. But I liked it. “I’m buying it,” I told him, ignoring his eye-rolling.
Once home, I tried the shirt on with some jeans, and rather liked the effect. It suited me. I liked the inner lining, and the way it was made. I walked downstairs and stood in front of the Mont in the den. “How’s it look?” I asked.
He glanced up from his computer and flinched away. “Good god!” he yelled. “Don’t do that to me!”
“Oh, come on,” I chided. “It’s not that bad. Is it?”
He smiled in a conciliatory manner and said, with the utmost of sincerity, “No, it will be fine. Once you have a sweater over it.”
Butt-wipe.
Saturday night, feeling feisty, I announced, “I am wearing the shirt.”
“You’re not really,” said the Mont.
“Yes. I am.”
“Airplanes will mistake you for a landing strip.”
“I’m wearing it!”
I must have sounded determined, because he shrugged in that sort of it’s your funeral way and let me go change. I put on the shirt and looked at myself in the mirror. It fit well. It didn’t billow around the waist, the way so many slim-fitting shirts tend to. I still liked it. It was in that kind of proud and feisty mood that a couple of minutes later we pulled up in front of Clark and Jeffrey’s house down the street, to pick them up before we went to the bar. “Good evening, Clark and Jeffrey, people to whom I am speaking this evening,” I said.
There was a moment of silence as they both settled in. Then Clark said, “Oh, are you not talking to the Mont because he said something about you wearing his mother’s blouse?”
The whole, long evening was like that. My so-called friends had the bar’s owner come over and ask me if I’d like him to find a tablecloth to match my shirt, and enlisted the karaoke mistress to call me to the microphone using my drag-name-if-I-had-a-drag-name. (If you must know, it’s Pansy Pots. Because once we were driving by a garden center that had a sign advertising Pansy Pots 3 for $5, and I said, “You know, that would make a great drag name.”) By the end of the night, even my friend ‘Drew’s partner, Stee, was in on the joke. When the Mont went up to the mic and ended up soloing “Something Stupid,” on which we normally duet, I complained loud and long that ordinarily he asked me to sing with him.
“Maybe it’s the shirt,” said Stee, sounding apologetic.
I don’t care. I like the shirt. It was six dollars. Maybe there was a reason it was discounted so steeply. I’m wearing it, dammit. I'M WEARING IT ALL THE TIME.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
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